He reached for the small shears with his good hand, putting his bloody towel down on the table. After he cut the material, he instructed her to wrap the tape and within minutes he was patched up and didn’t have any more excuses to touch her. But dammit, why did he need anexcuse?
Diggs reached for her hand and pulled her closer. “Thankyou.”
A tinge of red flushed her cheeks and she glanced down at his hand, avoiding his gaze. “You’re welcome. I’m sorry he bityou.”
“I’m not,” Diggs said, unable to tear his gaze away from her delicate features. She had a small smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose that he thought was sexy ashell.
She glanced up sharply at his words, her gaze locking on his. “You’renot?”
He shook his head. “He would’ve bitten one of you. And he needed to be treated. It was the onlyway.”
Damn, she smelled so good, even covered in blood and sweat, he could detect the sweet, honeyed perfume she wore on her skin. Everything about her healed him. Her pulse rate kicked up at the base of her neck and her breathing became shallow and faster. He knew she was as aware of him as he was ofher.
Diggs found himself inching closer to her, caught in a spell binding them together. Audra’s gaze dropped to his mouth and Diggs almost groaned out loud. “You need to stop doingthat.”
“Stop doing what?” she saidbreathlessly.
“Being so sexy.” He had to fight not to crush her in hisgrip.
“I didn’t realize I was,” shesaid.
He’d already figured out she was innocent. She seemed unaware of the effect she had on him, and dammit he loved that too. He loved that she didn’t intentionally try to make him want her. She didn’t wear makeup, and he could see her porcelain clear skin as pure and beautiful as her bright green eyes. The graceful arch to her curvy nose. A natural rosy blush to her fulllips.
He wanted her like he wanted tobreathe.
Diggs drew in a deep breath, attempting to get control of some of the raging emotions trying to take over his entire body and released her. “How about we check on Trigger and then I can show you upstairs to my room for ashower?”
Her neck turned deep red, the blush working its way up to her cheeks. “Shower?”
Instantly the image of her naked and pinned against the tile wall in his shower, him between her legs, driving into her as she screamed out his name flooded his mind. The blood rushed into his cock and his veins bulged in his arms. “Alone. So you can get the bloodoff.”
Her pupils dilated despite the fluorescent lighting in the lab. “Okay, I’d like that.” But she didn’t move away from him. She stood just between his broad knees and it was all he could do not to crush her to him oncemore.
This woman was going to be the death of him.“Let’s go check on Trigger,” Diggs said. The dog seemed to be the only thing that drew her attention more. And indeed, it did again. She seemed to snap out of her haze and jerked away, as if she felt guilty about wantinghim.
If she cared that much about a stray injured dog, how fiercely loyal would she be to someone she truly cared about?Diggs wasn’t sure, but damn he wanted to findout.
She moved away from him, striding to where Melissa was just straightening up from being bent over the dog. Diggs followed, stopping when they reached the table once more, but he moved to stand right next to Audra. Their arms didn’t touch but he could feel her thisclose.
“It is as I thought,” Melissa said. “In addition to the fractured ribs, he has a swollen kidney but no internal bleeding. The bandage on his front leg appears to be older and there’s still an open wound that has an infection. I had to debride it, disinfect it, and staple it back together. If we keep an eye on it and make sure the infection doesn’t come back, I think he’ll beokay.”
Trigger had fresh white bandages wrapped around his middle and on the nub of his front leg that was missing. The material stood out bright and stark against his darkfur.
Audra trailed her fingers through the fur on the back of the dog’sneck.
“What happened?” Melissacontinued.
Diggs nodded, “I found some bastard beating him with a bat on the side of the road outside the comp—house.”
Melissa’s steady gaze held his for a second before she nodded. He’d almost made a big ass mistake in front of someone they hadn’t checked out yet. Although he instinctively knew they could trust Audra with just about anything, he had to verify her background first. With General Rainier out there, they couldn’t be toocareful.
“The dog’s blood type was on the inside of his collar. There’s only a couple of instances where they do that. He was either a canine for law enforcement, or themilitary.”
“He was my service dog.” Audra flinched, and her hand trembled, but she kept her head lowered so he couldn’t see her expression. She’d reacted oddly when he’d said soldier earlier, and he’d blown it off, thinking she was just still emotionally reacting to the dog’s trauma. But she’d done it again, and this time he was attuned enough toward her to know she had a knee-jerk reaction that she couldn’t control. Something about the military scared the shit out ofher.
Diggs carefully combed through the morning, replaying her reactions and expressions to things he’d said and how she reacted.She wasn’t telling him the truth.He wasn’t a mind reader, but he knew enough about her to know she was hiding something. She wasafraid.
That thought sent a protective surge rushing through his veins so violently he nearly shook with it. If she was afraid of someone in the military, that means someone had hurt her deeply for her to have such a gut wrenching reaction to the simple word. The man on the highway had asked if he was military. He’d had grayed red hair – Audra had redhair.
